Saturday, October 6, 2012

Penis Size Study in 113 Countries Shows Who Comes Out on Top

Wondering how you and your country measure up?

The United States came in at 5 inches; Australia came in at 5.2 inches. At the top of the list were the Congo, whose men boasted an average of 7.1 inches. Closely following them were Ecuadorians at 7.0 inches, Ghanaians at 6.8 inches;and Colombians at 6.7 inches.

In Europe, Italians were at the top of the list, with 6.2 inches. Next was Greece, at 5.8 inches and Germany at 5.7 inches. Britons measured in at 5.5 inches, beating out the French, who measured 5.3 inches. Rounding out the list were North and South Korea, who both measure, on average, 3.8 inches.

U.S. Troops in Mexico as Feds Aid Cartels

Federal authorities in the United States have been quietly supporting certain Mexican criminal empires, especially the Sinaloa drug cartel, in a bid to solidify the syndicates’ reign as dominant powerbrokers in particular territories, according to leaked e-mails from a U.S.-based Mexican diplomat to the private intelligence firm Stratfor. If cartel chiefs cooperate with authorities, “governments will allow controlled drug trades,” the diplomatic source wrote.

Original recipe for Jack Daniel's found in Welsh book of herbal remedies


Businessman Mark Evans, 54, was researching his family history when he discovered the recipe in a book of herbal remedies.
It was written in 1853 by his great-great grandmother who was called Daniels and was a local herbalist in Llanelli, South Wales.
Her brother-in-law left the Welsh town at about the same time to move to Lynchburg Tennessee where the Jack Daniel's distillery was opened three years later.
And the Jack Daniel's website states the founder of the distillery was from Wales.

Big Brother: Brazil to roll out national radio-chip ID/surveillance/logging for all vehicles

In Brazil, a new regulation requires drivers to add radio ID tags to their car windshields, which broadcast "vehicle year or fabrication, make, model, combustible, engine power and license plate number." This will be read by checkpoints throughout the country, and centrally processed and retained, in a system called Siniav. The administration claims that this system will be "confidential and secure" because its contractors will sign confidentiality agreements.

Most Citizens of the Star Wars Galaxy are Probably Totally Illiterate

Not once in any Star Wars movie does someone pick up a book or newspaper, magazine, literary journal, or chapbook handmade by an aspiring Jawa poet. If something is read by someone in Star Wars, it’s almost certainly off of a screen (and even then, maybe being translated by a droid), and it’s definitely not for entertainment purposes. As early as the 1990s-era expanded Star Wars books and comic books, we’re introduced to ancient Jedi “texts” called holocrons, which are basically talking holographic video recordings. Just how long has the Star Wars universe been reliant on fancy technology to transfer information as opposed to the written word? Is it possible that a good number of people in Star Wars are completely illiterate?

USDA diversity training session included 'illegal immigrants' chant

The U.S. government paid a Chicago consultant hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on diversity training workshops that, according to one watchdog, included an exercise in which employees were told to chant "our forefathers were illegal immigrants." 

Friday, October 5, 2012

Interviewing Obama supporters: "Was it fair that he wasn't allowed to use his teleprompter?"

Rebel Pundit caught up with supporters of the President at an Obama for America rally in Madison, WI on Thursday. When asked if it was "fair" that the President was unable to use a teleprompter during the debates, overwhelmingly the supporters said "no".

Watch the video at Breitbart.

Helicopter Parents vs. Free Range Kids: Q&A with "America's Worst Mom" Lenore Skenazy

Reason: Since 2009, Skenazy has been waging a non-stop battle against helicopter parents, nanny-state nuisances, and a media consumed by scare stories about everything from child abduction to food additives to sports injuries. The result is what Skenazy calls "'worst-first thinking,' which is coming up with the worst thing that could possibly happen and then proceeding as if it's likely to happen."

Forget Revolution What would really happen if the lights went out?

The digital Pearl Harbor.

Government officials sometimes describe a kind of Hieronymus Bosch landscape when warning of the possibility of a cyber attack on the electric grid. Imagine, if you will, that the United States is blindsided by an epic hack that interrupts power for much of the Midwest and mid-Atlantic for more than a week, switching off the lights, traffic signals, computers, water pumps, and air conditioners in millions of homes, businesses, and government offices. Americans swelter in the dark. Chaos reigns!

The sickly, stagnant September jobs report

Bottom line: The U.S. labor market remains in a deep depression with virtually no recovery since the official end of the Great Recession. But the Long Recession continues unabated.

Charts and lots more detail at AEI.

Barack Obama Impersonator Cringes At President's Debate Performance

With bonus "How To Impersonate Obama" video.

Millions of Americans watched the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, but perhaps none with the intensity of Jim Gossett and Maxwell Price.

The two men just happen to make their living impersonating the two candidates and a win on either side could mean four years of an income estimated to be higher than the $450,000 salary Obama makes being the leader of the free world.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Was Obama rattled by developing donor scandal story?

At The Examiner, via Instapundit.  This doesn't sound like much to me, because it's the same old stuff his campaign did in 2008, but I guess we'll see.

President Obama's reelection campaign, rattled by his Wednesday night debate performance, could be in for even worse news. According to knowledgeable sources, a national magazine and a national web site are preparing a blockbuster donor scandal story.

Sources told Secrets that the Obama campaign has been trying to block the story. But a key source said it plans to publish the story Friday or, more likely, Monday.

According to the sources, a taxpayer watchdog group conducted a nine-month investigation into presidential and congressional fundraising and has uncovered thousands of cases of credit card solicitations and donations to Obama and Capitol Hill, allegedly from unsecure accounts, and many from overseas. That might be a violation of federal election laws.

The Obama campaign has received hundreds of millions in small dollar donations, many via credit card donations through their website. On Thursday, the campaign announced a record September donor haul of $150 million.
At the end of the 2008 presidential campaign, the Obama-Biden effort was hit with a similar scandal. At the time, the Washington Post reported that the Obama campaign let donors use "largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor's identity."

What’s happening in the Iranian currency markets

Read the whole post at Financial Times: Gresham’s law takes Iran.

Gresham's law is an economic principle that states: "When a government compulsorily overvalues one type of money and undervalues another, the undervalued money will leave the country or disappear from circulation into hoards, while the overvalued money will flood into circulation."It is commonly stated as: "Bad money drives out good", but is more accurately stated: "Bad money drives out good if their exchange rate is set by law."

Excellent debunking: Obama's Re-Election Case Rests On 5 Phony Claims

At IBD:

In making his case for re-election in the face of historically high unemployment and sluggish growth, President Obama has a simple and straightforward argument.

Things were terrible when I arrived, he says, thanks to Bush-era policies of tax cuts and deregulation. We stopped the decline, but the ditch was so deep that it will take time to get out. Still, we are making progress, even if it isn't as fast as everyone would like.

So the last thing we want to do is return to the failed Bush policies that, he says, drove us into the ditch.


That argument appears to be working. More people continue to blame Bush than Obama for the current poor state of affairs, and some surveys show that consumer confidence has recently increased.

But each part of Obama's argument is based on claims that are not accurate.

Axelrod appeal to reporters we need you to make the points that Obama failed to make in the debate

"Mr Axelrod, speaking on a campaign conference call, made an appeal to reporters to make the points that Obama himself had failed to make in the debate."

AP obliges in a piece entitled “For Obama, words not said in debate spoke the loudest,” and hitting all the talking points that Obama missed.

via Instapundit.

How The Pirate Bay four dodged Swedish justice

Mostly, anyway.  The site's founders have moved out of Sweden, but Stockholm wants them back.  Lots of detail at ars technica.

Sasha Obama Asks Father Why He Was Acting Like Such A Pussy During Debate

DENVER—Following last night’s nationally televised presidential debate, President Barack Obama’s 11-year-old daughter Sasha reportedly asked her father why he was “acting like such a goddamned pussy up there.” “Daddy, how come you were being such a little bitch?” asked the sixth-grader, who told the president she was “genuinely worried” that maybe somebody had “cut Daddy’s balls off” right before he took the stage. “What happened, Dad? Were you on your period or something? Maybe the next time you’re in front of the entire country for an hour and a half you should try not letting another man spank you on the ass like that.” Sources added that Obama’s youngest daughter then offered to help the president go “look for [his] dick, because apparently it’s gone missing.

Technology Doesn't Yet Exist to Clean Up Fukushima

Lots of links and comments at ZeroHedge.

A group of scientists from the Science Council of Japan (SCJ) are advising the government via the Japan Atomic Energy Company (JAEC) to completely overhaul its nuclear waste disposal plan. Currently, the government plans to bury spent nuclear fuel 300 meters below ground, where it will need to stay for tens of thousands of years until it is no longer radioactive.

The SCJ group said that because Japan is so prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity, there’s no guarantee of safety for future generations.

Danon Runyon (Guys and Dolls) was born 128 years ago today

I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against.
- Damon Runyon ("A Nice Price," Collier's, 8 September 1934)

I always claim the mission workers come out too early to catch any sinners on this part of Broadway. At such an hour the sinners are still in bed resting up from their sinning of the night before, so they will be in good shape for more sinning a little later on.
- Runyon ("The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown," Colliers, 28 January 1933)

"My boy," he says, "always try to rub up against money, for if you rub up against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you."
- Runyon ("A Very Honorable Guy," Cosmopolitan, August, 1929)

One of these days ... a guy is going to come up to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the Jack of Spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son, do not bet this man, for as sure as you are standing there, you are going to end up with an earful of cider.
- Runyon (unsourced) (from the script of the 1955 movie version of Guys and Dolls)

The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.*
- Runyon (attributed)

Today is the 128th anniversary of the birth of American journalist and short-story writer (Alfred) Damon Runyon (1884-1946) in Manhattan, Kansas. Runyon ran away from home - by then in Pueblo, Colorado - to serve in the Spanish-American War and later became a war correspondent, columnist, and feature-writer for the Hearst syndicate. Called "the prose laureate of the semi-literate," he wrote short stories about the gamblers, bookies, gangsters, and chorus girls of New York City, later collected in Guys and Dolls (1931), on which the famous Broadway musical is based. Shortly before his death, he wrote to his friends,

"You can keep the things of bronze and stone, and give me one man to remember me just once a year."

* N.B. The reference here is to Ecclesiastes 9:11:

"The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong... but time and chance happeneth to them all."

The opening number (Fugue for Tinhorns) of the 1955 film version of Guys and Dolls featuring the inimitable Stubby Kaye as Nicely-Nicely:


Damon Runyon:

Taken from Ed's Quotation of the Day, only available via email.  If you'd like to be added to his list, leave your email address in the comments. 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Protest breaks out in Iran as currency crumbles

Comments and lots of links at HotAir.  Ahmadinejad’s been reduced to begging Iranians at press conferences not to convert their currency, which has lost four-fifths of its value this year, to something more stable.  The chart below is for the last 70 days:


Here’s what happened the last time America went over a fiscal cliff ….

Jim Pethokoukis writing at AEI has links and charts:

Going over the fiscal cliff would hit the fragile U.S. economy with about $800 billion of tax increases (mostly) and spending cuts in calendar 2013, or about 5% of GDP.

WaPo: Sensitive intel documents still lying on the floor of looted Benghazi consulate

Read the whole thing - HotAir has comments and links, including this:

At least one document found amid the clutter indicates that Americans at the mission were discussing the possibility of an attack in early September, just two days before the assault took place. The document is a memorandum dated Sept. 9 from the U.S. mission’s security office to the 17th February Martyrs Brigade, the Libyan-government-sanctioned militia that was guarding the compound, making plans for a “quick reaction force,” or QRF, that would provide security…

Was Han Legally Justified In Shooting Greedo?

Legal Geeks:

Applying the facts to the Model Penal Code and Common Law, Han was justified in shooting first and killing Greedo. Without a doubt, having a blaster pointed directly at Han put his life in danger. Additionally, Greedo’s statement “That’s the idea. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time,” communicated Greedo’s intent to kill Han. Shooting first was the only away to prevent Greedo from using deadly force himself.

As for the retreat issue, Han was already at gunpoint and cornered in the booth when Han shot Greedo. It is unlikely Han could have retreated with his back to the wall and in a seated position. Shooting his way out appeared to be his only option.

Finally, reasonable belief: Han was in Mos Eisley Spaceport, a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Second, Greedo had his weapon pointed at Han the entire time, with Han cornered in a booth. This should be sufficient to show the reasonableness of the threat to Han’s life.

via Neatorama.

Doctors are sick of Obamacare

More details and links at HuffPo:

More than half of physicians say they’ll vote for Mitt Romney come November 6th compared to just 36 percent for Obama, according to a recent survey by medical staffing firm Jackson and Cokey. In fact, 15 percent of survey respondents said they’ll be switching to the Republican camp this election, with most citing the Affordable Care Act as the reason.

The majority of the 3,660 doctors polled in the survey said they also are in favor of repealing and replacing Obama’s signature piece of legislation because it failed to address tort reform, an issue relating regulations surrounding malpractice lawsuits.

U.S. Embassy in Libya Asked for Extra Security, Request Denied

Multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the (House Oversight and Government Reform) Committee that, prior to the September 11 attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi,” Issa and Chaffetz added. “The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington.”

Lockheed will illegally delay sending WARN layoff notices until after the election

Per Obama "guidance", the new strong-arming!

The guidance also said the federal government would cover severance costs that are mandated under a federal layoff notices law.

The decision by Lockheed means tens of thousands won’t get layoff notices days before Election Day, which might have cast a crucial blow against President Obama’s reelection chances.

Republicans argue that last week’s guidance was a politically motivated effort by the administration to protect Obama ahead of the election.

And from Doug Powers at Malkin: What’s not being answered is this: The Obama administration is arguing that the WARN Act isn’t applicable in cases involving sequestration. If that’s true, why are they putting taxpayers on the hook to cover costs the WARN Act mandates if that law doesn’t apply to this situation?

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Obama 2007 speech channels Al Sharpton: describes a racist society in which the white majority profits by exploiting black America

Read the whole thing and watch the videos at Daily Caller.

He spent 36 minutes at the pulpit telling a mostly black audience that the U.S. government doesn’t like them because they’re black.

As the speech continues, Obama makes repeated and all-but-explicit appeals to racial solidarity, referring to “our” people and “our neighborhoods,” as distinct from the white majority.

Obamacare: no state exchange -> no tax credits -> no penalties

Ponnuru writing at Bloomberg - read the whole thing.

Obama’s plan makes tax credits available to people who get health insurance from exchanges set up by state governments. If states don’t establish those exchanges, the federal government will do so for them. The federal exchanges, however, don’t come with tax credits: The law authorizes credits only for people who get insurance from state-established exchanges. And that creates some problems the administration didn’t foresee, and now hopes to wish away.

Many states are determined in their opposition, and few of them have set up exchanges. If they don’t do so, the tax credits don’t go into effect and the federally established exchanges won’t work: People won’t be able to afford the insurance available on them without the subsidy.

States have another incentive to refrain from setting up exchanges under the health-care law: It protects companies and individuals in the state from tax increases. The law introduces penalties of as much as $3,000 per employee for firms that don’t provide insurance -- but only if an employee is getting coverage with the help of a tax credit. No state exchanges means no tax credits and thus no employer penalties. The law also notoriously penalizes many people for not buying insurance. In some cases, being eligible for a tax credit and still not buying insurance subjects you to the penalty. So, again, no state exchange means no tax credit and thus fewer people hit by the penalty.

70-year-old identical twins are Amsterdam's oldest prostitutes

BBC has an article about their memoirs and a documentary film about their lives.
Martine still sells sex. She says the Dutch state pension alone is not enough to live on. Louise quit because of arthritis.

Last night’s episode of "Good Wife" was a close adaptation of a Radley Balko piece

on the Terrance Huff traffic stop.

Everything from the setting (Madison County, Illinois) to the falsely alerting drug dog, the bad cop, the illegal traffic stop, the illegal search, the forfeiture corridor, it was all in there. They even threw in a little twist about recording cops in Illinois. You can watch the entire episode here, but The Agitator has a clip of the scene with the stop at the above link.

Climate change cheat sheet for the presidential debate

WUWT posts several points from this more comprehensive answer to climate alarmists. Links and information on each of the points.

Climate During the Obama Administration

• Over the course of the Obama presidency the rate of global warming has declined.

• Over the course of the Obama presidency the rise of the global sea level has slowed.

• Over the course of the Obama presidency the emissions of greenhouse gases from the U.S. have declined.

None of the above are a result of Obama Administration policies.

• Instead, the vagaries of natural climate variability have led to a (temporary) slowdown of the rise in both global average temperature and global average sea level.

Raw Milk Co-Op Farmer Acquitted Through Jury Nullification

I'd love to see this happen more often:

Technically, Alvin was guilty of breaking the laws in question, even though the laws are totally ridiculous and unjust.  Luckily this jury was informed about the process of jury nullification, and their legal right to rule in favor of the accused for breaking unjust laws.

Will Pot Become Legal?

For decades, champions of the drug war have trumpeted the dire risks of marijuana. But millions of Americans have used and even enjoyed it -- nearly 100 million, in fact. Most of them have gone on to lead responsible, well-adjusted lives.

If anything related to pot would have kept them from being elected to office, it would be the laws against it. An arrest or a conviction could derail a political career before it even got started. Yet these presidents went on putting people in jail for something they got away with.

But the same things are true of alcohol, a drug that inflicts far more damage to users and the rest of us than marijuana could ever do. We accept those risks as the price of personal freedom -- while focusing law enforcement on combating abuse, not use. A similar respect for individual prerogative ought to govern in the realm of cannabis.

EPA’s attempt to over-regulate thwarted by its own people

More on the ongoing and escalating EPA power grab - read the whole thing:

Under Mrs. Jackson, the EPA has become less a regulator following the law and more an ideological vanguard that will push its limits-to-growth agenda as long and as far as the courts and Congress allow. Watch out in a second Obama term.

Mexican media: doing the jobs American media won't do

At Daily Caller, more on the Univision report:

“Univision News identified a total of 57 more previously unreported firearms  (that were not mentioned in [the U.S.] Congress’ investigation) that were bought by straw purchasers monitored by ATF during Operation Fast and Furious, and then recovered in Mexico in sites related to murders, kidnappings, and at least one other massacre,” the Univision report reads.

Univision also said that it was Phoenix ATF office leader Bill Newell who ultimately concluded that “the only way to track the guns was to wait for weapons to be recovered in crime scenes in Mexico.”

That charge, if true, would mean the Obama administration decided to allow cartel operatives to kill and injure people with the weapons it gave them, and to recover the guns only after criminals ditched them at brutal — often deadly — crime scenes.

Univision also found additional details about other gunwalking operations the Obama administration undertook.

Previous posts:

Mark Steyn re Fast & Furious: Holder Lied, Mexicans Died!

English captioned Univision report on Operation Fast & Furious

Mark Steyn re Fast & Furious: Holder Lied, Mexicans Died!

On the information contained in Univision's report:

“Near midnight, the assassins, later identified as hired guns for the Mexican cartel La Linea, broke into a one-story house and opened fire on a gathering of nearly 60 teenagers. Outside, lookouts gunned down a screaming neighbor and several students who had managed to escape. Fourteen young men and women were killed, and 12 more were wounded before the hit men finally fled.”

Citing a Mexican Army document it obtained and published, Univision reported that “[t]hree of the high caliber weapons fired that night in Villas de Salvarcar were linked to a gun tracing operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).”

Previous post: English captioned Univision report on Operation Fast & Furious

Milestone: U.S. Troop Deaths Now at 2000 in Afghanistan

I assume that the lapdog media will take little note of this, now that Bush isn't around to blame.

Muslims Now Rioting Over Facebook Photos

Thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims angry over an alleged derogatory photo of the Islamic holy book Quran on Facebook set fires in at least 10 Buddhist temples and 40 homes near the southern border with Myanmar, authorities said Sunday.